HP 'to save $500m per year' with Intel’s wireless tech

HP claims it will make huge savings by deploying wireless technology such as Pro Wi-Di and Wireless Docking, which is built into Intel's latest 5th Generation silicon.

Deploying Pro Wi-Di in meeting rooms is expected to save an average of five minutes per presenter per meeting, as they do not have to faff around with cables or dongles to connect to bigs screens and projectors.

This may not seem like much, but productivity gains for enterprises such as HP, which has a 300,000-strong workforce, could be huge.

"When you have this massive infrastructure [at HP] and this many people working in this environment, we believe [going wireless] is going to save us 500 million a year." said Ramn Baez, HP CIO, at Intel's work transformation event.

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Pro Wi-Di differs from existing consumer wireless display technology as it is designed to be deployed within enterprises where radio networks are congested.

It's also more secure. Upon connecting, a privacy screen pops up on both your laptop/hybrid and the conference room screen before any content is displayed. This allows employees to check that they have not accidentally connected to a display in another room.

Pro Wi-Di works with existing projectors and screens, with businesses simply needing to buy an adapter with an HDMI connector. Users will need a device powered by the 5th Generation Broadwell processor because this is the first chipset to have the compatible technology embedded into the silicon.

Meanwhile, Wireless Docking will allow users to connect their laptops to monitors by tapping WiGig enabled 5th Generation machines onto a small cube, which is on the desk.

So instead of this...

Desks of the future will look more like this...

When the employee picks up a laptop and walks away from the dock, it will automatically disengage once the device is out of range (approx 10 feet) and another employee can then tap in an take their place. Such a system is likely to increase the prominence of hotdesking.

Pro Wi-Di will be supported as standard in almost all 5th generation devices including the Dell Latitude E7450, E5550, as well as the Lenovo Yoga Pro 2 and X1 Carbon.

Integration of WiGig appears to be more limited with the first compatible the 5th Generation devices being the Dell Latitude E7450 and E5550 machines.